Truth or Dare
by MsBarrows
Summary: A night of games and drinking; a challenge. A kiss. Three glimpses at the changing relationship of Anders and Sebastian.
1. Truth or Dare

****This started off as a single longish fill for a prompt on Tumblr of "Anders/Sebastian – Truth or Dare" but then got a sequel prompt, and now seems to have decided to turn into a little triptych of a hint of a story. Those of you who read my "In the Maker's Light: Collected Ficlets" where this was originally posted will have seen this chapter already, but not the next two.****

****And before anyone asks... no, this isn't "Eye of the Storm" Anders and Sebastian.****

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><p>The end of a long evening at the Hanged Man. Wicked Grace had ended some time ago, yet they lingered on, preferring to spend just a little more time in shared company before heading back to their separate and lonely homes.<p>

It was Isabela who suggested the game; Hawke who convinced everyone to take part in it, even Sebastian, who disliked such games, and Anders, who knew that he would be in trouble with Justice if he had to drink a shot in lieu of answering or acting. They were all truthful that evening, but those two particularly so, Sebastian answering truthfully, but picking and choosing his words with care, not liking revealing too much of himself, and Anders answering with the bald truthfulness of those who only bother about retaining the big secrets any more, the dangerous ones.

It made them a target for the others, somehow. First a question to Anders, who would then ask one of the others, than a question to Sebastian, who again would pick someone, anyone, other than Anders. And then back around to Anders again, turn and turnabout, each the only person whose questions or dares the other hadn't answered or fulfilled.

"Truth or Dare, Sebastian?" Hawke asked, grinning widely at the man, swaying just slightly from the amount of drink he'd imbibed over the course of the evening. Not because he was refusing his truths and dares, but because he was drinking steadily anyway.

"Truth," Sebastian said, after studying the twinkle in his eyes for a moment.

"We've all heard that you were a wild one in your youth. I find myself wondering - what was the most number of people you ever shared a bed with at once? __Not__for sleep, of course - for sex?"

Sebastian flushed, and looked down at the full shot glass in front of him, as if considering refusing and drinking. Then glanced up, a wry smile twisting his lips. "Seven," he admitted, followed by a roar of remarks from the others, loudest from Isabela.

He waited until the uproar died down, then smiled down the length of the table. "Varric," he called out. "Truth or Dare?"

"I'll go with truth, since your dares are always so tame, choir-boy," Varric called back, sounding slightly annoyed. Sebastian was far from his favourite of Hawke's mixed bunch of companions, and he saw the archer only as a poor replacement for himself on the occasions when he was unable to join Hawke.

Sebastian smiled crookedly, ignoring the sting of Varric's words. "A big truth then, since my dares don't meet your approval. Why is your bow named Bianca?"

Varric's eyes went flat and cold. "Because Mirabelle was taken," he snapped, and knocked back his shot, leaving everyone unsure if he'd drunk because he'd lied, or because that had been a truth he'd preferred not to have spoken.

"Anders. Truth or dare?" Varric asked, his eyes never leaving Sebastian, not even as he refilled his glass.

"Umm. Dare?" Anders said, glancing worriedly back and forth between the two men.

"I dare you to kiss choir-boy here. With tongue."

Anders stilled. He looked down at his glass, then closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, before looking across the table at Sebastian. The other man had gone very still, his face set, a faint flush on his cheeks - of anger, or embarrassment, it was hard to say. Everyone else at the table had fallen silent, several of them exchanging uneasy looks.

Sebastian continued looking at Varric for a long moment, then turned and locked eyes with Anders. After a moment his eyebrow rose, just the slightest bit. Something passed between the two men.

Anders cleared his throat and rose to his feet, smoothing down his robe with one hand as his chair-legs scraped across the stone floor, the only sound in the room. He walked around the table, to Sebastian's side of it. As he drew near, Sebastian scooted his own chair back from the table, then leaned back, head turned to look at Anders.

Anders reached the chair, and stopped, then leaned down, one hand coming to rest on the back of the chair by Sebastian's head, the other on the arm of it. Sebastian tilted his head and closed his eyes as Anders closed the last bit of distance between them. The room remained silent, everyone watching as the two kissed. It was clear Sebastian's mouth was open; equally clear that Anders' tongue was in his mouth. After a moment Sebastian raised one hand, setting it lightly against the mage's cheek. Anders stiffened slightly, but continued the kiss, keeping his own hands to himself, though the one on the chair arm did lift briefly, the fingers curling into a loose fist before opening again, fingertips settling back on the chair arm.

When Anders finally broke the kiss, the two men both gasped for breath, holding each other's gaze for a moment. Then Anders turned and stalked out of the room without a word, head held high, clearly having had enough of games for the evening. Sebastian looked down the table at Varric again, blotted his lips dry with the back of his sleeve. "Good enough?" he asked, calmly, his cheeks still flushed with colour.

"Yeah, good enough," Varric growled, and scowled down at his shot glass.

"Good. I'll be on my way then. A pleasant evening to you all," he said, and stood and walked off, back as stiffly erect as an offended cat's tail.

"Who won, then?" Merrill asked, confused, after the door had shut behind him.

"I think they did, kitten," Isabela told her.

"Oh. That's all right then."


	2. After The Kiss

Sebastian paused after exiting the Hanged Man, surprised to see a familiar feather-shouldered figure leaning against the wall across the street from the entrance, arms folded across his chest. "Anders," he said, voice carefully neutral.

The mage straightened up. "Sebastian," he acknowledged, with a faint nod. "Walk with me a while?"

Sebastian hesitated, then nodded. "All right," he said warily, and fell into step beside Anders as the mage turned away and began walking in the direction of the docks. They both remained silent, neither looking at the other, both just walking along ignoring each other as if it was some random happenstance that had them both walking in the same direction at the same time.

Anders led the was to a deserted dock, where he finally stopped, staring out at the moon-lit harbour. "Thanks," he said, abruptly. "You didn't have to do that."

"It was my fault Varric did that," Sebastian said, turning his head to look calmly at the other man. "It was foolish of me; he wouldn't have targeted you like that – targeted __me__- if I hadn't of done so. I wish I could blame it on the drink, but I'd had almost none," he added, lightly.

Anders glanced his way, then away again. "Why'd you do it, then?"

Sebastian shrugged, then moved to sit on a nearby bollard, his back to the water, his face shadowed as he looked towards Anders. "I don't rightly know. No, perhaps I do. It's... I can't get over his dislike of me. I can't understand it."

Anders snorted. "He's not the only one who dislikes you."

"I know," Sebastian answered, voice soft where another man might have snapped the words. "But I can understand why the rest of you don't. You hate anything to do with the chantry. Merrill is frightened I'll turn her in to the templars. Aveline thinks I'm a... pompous prig, I believe was the term I've heard her use. Isabela is merely amused by me. Varric - just dislikes me, for no other reason than that I'm an archer too, as far as I can tell."

Anders gave Sebastian a longer look. "And yet you trail along after Hawke anyway."

Sebastian shrugged. "Hawke is Hawke. He's very good at getting what he wants. And if he wants an archer and Varric isn't available, then he wants me. I'm willing to oblige. Besides, Fenris is a friend, and Hawke always brings him."

Anders snorted. "He is that... Hawke being good at getting what he wants, I mean. So... this was just some sort of penance for you then? The kiss?"

Sebastian sat very still, for a long time. "I suppose it was," he agreed, softly, voice a near-whisper.

"You..." Anders broke off, looked away, then looked back. "You enjoyed it."

Another long silence. "Yes. You are a very good kisser," Sebastian said, and then rose to his feet, turning to look out over the harbour. "And handsome, and if I'd met you before I was sent off to the chantry, I'd have likely been... very intrigued by you. But I didn't. And there is too great a divide between us to be bridged by something as simple as a single kiss."

Anders smiled, crookedly. "True words," he agreed. "Still... thank you. You could have refused, and I'd have ended up having to drink, and then Justice..." he broke off, shook his head. "Never mind. Too much of my problems, that you don't need to hear. __Justice__says your action was fair and rightful, by the way."

Sebastian snorted softly. "I will take that under advisement," he said dryly, then turned, and started to walk away. And stopped. "A great divide can sometimes be bridged, a pebble at a time, if someone is willing to make the effort. I wish we could at least... not be enemies, even if not friends."

Anders turned his head, and looked at him for a moment. "I'll take that under advisement," he echoed Sebastian's words, voice equally dry, then turned away again.

Sebastian resumed walking, leaving the mage behind, alone on the dock, staring out at the distant shape of the Gallows.


	3. After The Chantry

He cut through a twisting alley, trying to find a way out of the city. This path, too, proved to be blocked by new-fallen rubble. He cursed, and turned, and froze for a moment as he saw movement in the shadows behind him. A whirl of motion, and he crashed to his back on the ground, crying out as the air whooshed out of his lungs, his head bouncing off the hard-packed debris.

Rough edges of broken stone and brick dug into his back, hard edges of armour into his front, with a force that would leave bruises even through the multiple layers of his robe, as someone pinned him down, armoured hands closing with bruising force around his wrists. For a moment his vision darkened, sparks dancing before his vision, then his lungs took in a great gasp of air and his vision cleared, enough to see who had caught him.

Sebastian, face an anguished mask, blue eyes filled with an anger that verged on madness. His face was wet, with sweat, with tears that spilled unheeded from his eyes. "You killed them," he rasped out. "Everyone in the chantry... so many others... you killed them all, you __bastard!__"

Anders swallowed. "Yes," he admitted, flatly, baldly. There was no point in denying it. He had killed them. "It was justice," he said, and wasn't sure if he'd meant it was justice, the abstract concept, or that it had been done by Justice, the indwelling spirit.

"Do not tell me that atrocity was __justice__," Sebastian snarled. "It was __vengeance__, nothing more."

"Yes," Anders said, simply. Because that, too, was true. Justice, or his dark alter-ego, vengeance - one and the same, flip sides of a coin, the thing and its reflection in a dark mirror. He was no longer sure where the dividing line was between the two. If there even was one.

He stared up at Sebastian's hate-twisted face, so close to his own. Could feel the trembling in his body, where it pressed hard against Anders, pinning him down. Felt the archer's hands tighten on his wrists as Sebastian drew a deep, sobbing breath.

He felt sure he would die, then. That Sebastian would kill him, as Hawke had inexplicably failed to. And the prospect... didn't concern him. He had __expected__to die this day. To already be dead by now, killed by Meredith, or Hawke, some random templar, some frightened citizen... it was all right if it was Sebastian that killed him. He should be dead anyway. So he lay there, waiting patiently for his death.

Sebastian drew a deep sobbing breath. His head dropped to rest against Anders' chest. "You __bastard__," he repeated, voice muffled by Anders' clothing, and breaking on another sob, his hands flexing on Anders' wrists.

Anders closed his eyes, and drew a long slow breath. An image came to him, then, from something Sebastian had said to him once, years before. Of a flat plane beneath a dark starless sky, a vast chasm dividing it in two, plunging down to uncharted dark depths. And of an enormous mound of pebbles bridging it, the narrow top edge of it a fine silver-limned path joining the two sides, a hair-thin line against the immensity of the darkness of that great divide. He swallowed, thickly, picturing the thousands upon thousands of little things that had made up those pebbles, some only the size of grains of sand; a chance smile, a word of encouragement, a nod of polite greeting. The occasional larger rock - a time one of them had saved each other's life, from sword or claw, with spell or arrow. Warnings obliquely passed of templar doings. Every size of pebble in between, too; nights at the Hanged Man. A joke shared over cards. Quiet talks around a fire. Moments of rare agreement. Shared dangers; shared angers and sorrows. Unexpected gifts. Three years worth of them, it had taken to forge that slender bridge.

Not enemies. But not friends, either. The differences between them too vast for that.

And in his mind's eye he saw a tremor shaking the plain, the two sides of the chasm edging even further apart, the hard-won pile of pebbles subsiding into the depths. The silver line stretched, dipped. Would break, if it hadn't broken already.

Sebastian released his wrists, hands moving to settle on his shoulders instead, digging into the feathers there. Anders opened his eyes. Without considering what he was doing, he spread his legs, bent his knees so they rose to either side of Sebastian's thighs, his booted feet flat on the dusty ground. His hands moved to cup Sebastian's head, lift the man's tear-streaked face from where it was pressed against his chest. He started into Sebastian's eyes for a long moment, then pressed upward with his hips, rubbing himself against the man.

It was a mad impulse. It was __stupid__. But he did it anyway. Sebastian gasped, eyes widening. Anders deliberately thrust against him a second time as he continued to stare into his eyes. Sebastian jerked in shocked surprise. Then a pained moan escaped Sebastian's lips, and he squirmed a little higher, bringing his groin more fully into contact with the mage still pinned beneath him.

Anders lifted his head, closing the distance remaining between them, and they kissed, as they had not since that one time, three years before. Except this kiss was nothing like __that__kiss. That kiss had been a momentary truce, passionless, a guarded exchange. __This__kiss... this kiss was wholly unguarded. Raw, and hungry, fuelled more by anger and hate than any saner passion.

Anders moaned as Sebastian's tongue invaded his mouth, demanding, the archer's hands moving from his shoulders to cup his head in turn. He trust up again, felt Sebastian's armoured groin thrust back. They rutted against each other, desperately, the kiss going on and on, broken only briefly by gasps for breath or cries of pleasure. They struggled against each other, not for any escape, but for release. Anders cried out as he came, his spend dampening his robes, then held tightly to Sebastian as the archer ground against him a few more times, before shuddering and shouting aloud as he, too, climaxed.

Anders continued holding him, feeling the shudders continue; not passion now, but tears, as Sebastian wept in his arms. He held him tightly, knowing he had hurt this man almost beyond bearing. This man who might have someday been a friend, who likely would have been one already had their differing pasts had not placed them to either side of that great divide. He held him, until Sebastian finally quieted, going still, his tears spent. Anders let his arms drop free then, releasing him.

Sebastian moved slowly back off of him, looking dazed. He knelt there a moment, between Anders' still-raised knees, looking down at him. Swallowed, then spoke, voice hoarse. "Go. Run. As far as you can, as long as you can," he said, then pushed himself to his feet, staggering slightly. He paused again, staring down at the motionless mage. "Know that wherever you go, you cannot hide from me. I __will__find you," he spat out, then turned, and walked away.

As Anders slowly rose to his own feet, and turned away to seek a way around the pile of rubble blocking his path, he wondered if that had been a threat... or a promise.


End file.
